How will Tropical Storm Chantal impact New Jersey?
Highs will reach near 90 in most areas on Sunday, and humidity is expected to noticeably rise by the afternoon, according to the National Weather Service. Scattered showers and storms on Monday and Tuesday will bring the potential for 'torrential downpours, localized flooding and gusty winds."
"It's going to be warmer [Sunday] than it has been in the past couple of days," said National Weather Service meteorologist Matthew Wunsch. "So as we get into tomorrow, it will start to get a little more unsettled. It will get progressively cloudier. High temps will still be pretty warm, with forecasts in the upper 80s to lower 90s."
Moisture will rise and it will "make it feel significantly muggy outside" early in the week, Wunsch added.
"We have a frontal system that will make its approach tomorrow with also remnants of what is right now Tropical Storm Chantal. The moisture from that system will progressively make its way up there," Wunsch said.
The National Weather Service is not anticipating widespread flooding, Wunsch added, but storms could produce locally heavy rainfall with a potential for localized flooding. Showers are likely to begin by Monday afternoon.
Tropical Storm Chantal, the third tropical storm of the 2025 Atlantic season, made landfall near Litchfield Beach, South Carolina, at around 4 a.m. on Sunday, July 6, USA TODAY reported.
The storm began to weaken as it barreled inland across South Carolina, though the storm still brought a threat of flash flooding, possible tornadoes and dangerous rip current conditions. Forecasters said the storm, which has seen its winds decrease steadily through the morning, could weaken to a tropical depression later on July 6.
While the storm is expected to continue weakening, it was still likely "to produce heavy rainfall across portions of northeastern South Carolina today and across portions of North Carolina through Monday," the National Hurricane Center said.
Total rainfall of 2 to 4 inches, and local amounts up to 6 inches, were expected. "The combination of storm surge and tide will cause normally dry areas near the coast to be flooded by rising waters moving inland from the shoreline," the center warned.
Meanwhile, from the Carolinas to the Florida coast, Chantal was expected to produce "life-threatening surf and rip currents" into next week, the hurricane center said.
USA TODAY contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: How will Tropical Storm Chantal impact New Jersey?
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Officials have yet to explain who did what during critical early hours as deadly floods hit Texas
Nearly a week after floodwaters swept away more than a hundred lives, Texas officials are facing heated questions over how much was – or was not – done in the early morning hours of Friday as a wall of water raced down the Guadalupe River. Several officials in the past few days have deflected or become defensive when asked clarifying questions about the county's actions before and during the disaster. 'We're in the process of trying to put together a timeline. That's going to take a little bit of time,' Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said Tuesday, adding his priority was recovering victims, identifying bodies and notifying families. Authorities were pressed again Wednesday when they shared little information about the early hours of the emergency, instead calling attention to their swift response later in the day on July 4. 'I know that this tragedy, as horrific as it is, could have been so much worse,' Kerrville Police Department Sgt. Jonathan Lamb said. At least 120 people are dead and about 150 others are missing after the catastrophic flooding swept through central Texas in the wee hours of Independence Day. As search and rescue efforts continue for a seventh straight day, frustration grows over lingering questions about what officials did during those crucial early hours, if existing warning systems worked and whether any loss could have been prevented. Here's what we know – and still don't know – about officials' response during the pivotal hours of a catastrophic flooding event. The National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning for parts of Kerr County at 1:14 a.m. July 4. That warning was sent as a Wireless Emergency Alert to mobile devices in the warned area. Local emergency management agencies in some other counties began monitoring forecasts and listening to briefings to determine safety and evacuation plans once they received similar alerts. It's unclear if officials in Kerr County, which has suffered the largest number of fatalities by far, did the same. Sheriff Leitha said he wasn't alerted of the flooding in his county until 4 or 5 a.m. Friday — after 911 calls for help started coming in. The Guadalupe River started rising just after the NWS flash flood warning, and had climbed by 15 feet by 5 a.m., according to a water gauge in Hunt, home to Camp Mystic. As the 'wall of water' made its way down the river, according to a dire warning from the NWS, a local firefighter requested a CodeRED alert — a notification by a non-governmental mass communication system that sends emergency alerts to residents' phones — to warn the public at 4:22 a.m., CNN affiliate KSAT reported. But it was nearly six hours until some residents got the alert, according to audio from a dispatcher obtained by a KSAT source familiar with the emergency notification for residents near Hunt. When asked Wednesday about the hours that passed between the firefighter's call and when the alert was issued, Leitha deflected, saying those questions would be answered in time. Even before the flood struck, it appears some local officials might have been out of the loop. Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick previously said that county mayors and city judges were invited to a call the day before the flooding to discuss the weather forecast. A regional coordinator personally reached out to local officials, the Associated Press reported. 'I will tell you personally, I did not receive a call,' Kerrville Mayor Joe Herring Jr. said Wednesday, noting he could not speak for the Kerr County judge. No official in Kerr County has been able to answer who, if anyone, was in charge of emergency management the night of the flood. An emergency manager is generally someone who oversees local mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery efforts before, during and after an emergency. 'They're effectively leading the response in these communities, even as other resources come in from neighboring communities, the state and FEMA,' said Samantha Montano, associate professor at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. Kerr County's emergency manager would have been the one to guide a flash flooding procedure and evacuation plan – ideally established ahead of time – that's designed to maximize lives saved. Kerr County Emergency Management Coordinator W.B. 'Dub' Thomas declined to comment when asked to explain the actions the county took in the early morning hours of Friday, CNN previously reported. 'I don't have time for an interview, so I'm going to cancel this call,' he said. Major counties in the state – like Harris, which encompasses Houston, and Dallas County – have sophisticated evacuation procedures and criteria in the face of flooding, mainly due to Texas' reputation as one of the most flood-prone states in the country, said Phil Bedient, the director of Rice University's Severe Storm Prediction, Education, & Evacuation from Disasters Center. Understanding Kerr County's threshold for evacuating, if one has been enacted, or contacting the highest-risk residents and recommending they get to higher ground, would help to paint a more complete picture of county officials' thinking in the early hours of Friday once they realized the flooding was becoming calamitous. 'Sometimes it's better to shelter in place – the Hill Country is not a one-size-fits-all place,' Leitha, the sheriff, said Wednesday. 'First responders from emergency services throughout Kerr County promptly responded to the recent emergency as the situation unfolded.' There are also questions about whether critical vacancies at the NWS could have affected emergency response if warnings didn't make it to the right people. CNN previously reported the NWS' Austin-San Antonio office is missing a warning coordination meteorologist — a role that serves as a crucial, direct link between forecasters and emergency managers in the area — though it's unclear if it impacted outreach to counties. NWS forecasters were actively disseminating real-time weather information to emergency managers that night. The vacancy in the Austin-San Antonio office, along with other key roles, was the result of early retirement incentives offered by the Trump administration to shrink the size of the federal government, a NOAA official told CNN. The July 4 flood was a 1-in-100-year event — something forecasters expect would only happen once every 100 years, on average. Put another way, it has a 1% chance of occurring in any given year. There are clear maps around dangerous rivers like the Guadalupe outlining where a flood like this will track, which areas will be underwater, and where the flood will reach first. But at least 18 summer camps, including Camp Mystic, situated along the river, were built in these locations despite their known risks of flooding. At Camp Mystic, the flood ripped the wall off at least one building and left a cabin covered in dirt and mud, photos show. The debris-laden water line can be seen near the top of the cabin's doorway. About a dozen of the summer camps sustained damage from the floodwaters, and officials have not yet explained why they were allowed to be built, maintained or added to in these areas. Camp Mystic has been in place for nearly 100 years. Just two days before the deadly floods, an inspector with the Texas Department of State Health Services confirmed the all-girls Christian camp had a state-mandated plan 'for emergency shelter and for evacuation' in case of a disaster. The state health department does not maintain copies of youth camp emergency plans, which include circumstances of flooding, but they are reviewed during each annual inspection, a state DHS spokesperson told CNN. But in the wake of the devastation at the camp that left at least 27 people dead, it's not clear if that emergency plan was sufficient or how closely it was followed on July 4. It's also unclear if any policy change came after ten campers in 1987 were caught in the same Guadalupe River floodwaters and died. At the heart of emergency management is evolving policies after a disaster to mitigate devastation in the future. What, if any, changes are to come for Kerr County's emergency response in the wake of this tragedy? Officials at Tuesday's briefing clashed with reporters expecting answers. 'We understand you have many questions,' Texas Game Warden Ben Baker said, but officials are focused on bringing people home. 'But your community is asking these questions,' one reporter said. 'We will get answers,' Baker replied. He didn't take any more questions. CNN's Mary Gilbert, Angela Fritz, Renée Rigdon, Casey Tolan, Curt Devine, Lauren Mascarenhas, Chris Boyette and Rebekah Reiss contributed to this report.
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Warnings gave 3 hours, 21 minutes to save lives in Texas. What happened then remains unclear.
The National Weather Service's West Gulf River Forecast Center in Forth Worth helps other offices like the Austin/San Antonio office predict floods. (Photo by Desiree Rios for The Texas Tribune). Three hours and 21 minutes. That's how much time passed from when the National Weather Service sent out its first flash flood warning for part of Kerr County to when the first flooding reports came in from low-lying water crossings. The weather service says that first warning triggered one of many automatic alerts to cell phones and weather radios, telling people in the area of the danger. But if any local officials got those warnings, and if so, whether they activated in any meaningful way in that 3 hours and 21 minutes remains a black box. County officials have not responded to requests for interviews and have not said at public press conferences what efforts they took when the flooding threat turned from possible to imminent in the middle of the night. At those press conferences, Kerrville's city manager has repeatedly said they are focused on search and rescue, rather than answer questions about their response. 'We knew there was a flash flood warning,' Gov. Greg Abbott said at a press conference on Tuesday. 'No one would know that would be a 30-foot-high tsunami-ball of water.' NWS officials said they communicated directly with local officials during the night of the floods, but did not specify when. In some cases, they said, calls went to voicemail. Kerrville's mayor said he was unaware of the flooding until around 5:30 a.m., more than four hours after that first warning, when the city manager called and woke him up. Warnings didn't go up on county Facebook pages until around the same time — when the Guadalupe River had already risen rapidly and pushed out of its banks around Hunt and was making its way toward the county seat of Kerrville. Weather experts say that — from the outside at least — weather service forecasters appear to have done most everything right as the river rose with astonishing speed, blew past its previous record level and blasted through summer camps, RV parks, homes and campgrounds. It's the kind of situation that meteorologists warn trainees about, the sort of nightmare scenario some refer to as a silent killer. A holiday weekend that brings out-of-town visitors to the area known as 'Flash Flood Alley.' The worst of the danger arrived in the dark, while people slept. The river claimed more than 90 lives in Kerr County, where many people were still missing more than four days later. The weather service on Thursday afternoon put out a flood watch, which is a specific threat designation that means the conditions are present for a flood to happen. 'That far ahead of an event like this, that's the most you can do,' said Bob Henson, a meteorologist and journalist with Yale Climate Connections. And the agency issued increasingly urgent warnings through the night, which should have given most people enough time to escape death if they received and understood them, said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources. Questions remain about whether people along the river had cell service to get the push alerts, had alerts enabled on their phones, or were even awake to heed them. Had they been warned of the coming flood, many people could have walked in the rainy darkness to higher ground. 'This really does appear to be a case where had there been even a modest acknowledgement of the level of danger that was predicted by the weather service, I don't think much of the scope of loss of life would have happened,' Swain said in a public video call Monday. Emergency officials across Central Texas had reasons to pay attention to the skies well before the deadly flooding occurred and the July 4 holiday weekend got into full swing. Federal forecasters issued a flood watch for a swath of the state at 1:18 p.m. Thursday, including for Kerr County, where at least 30 children would die. Nineteen other people have been confirmed dead in other counties from the widespread floods as of late Tuesday. A flood watch is intended to indicate to local emergency officials and others that they should be on the lookout, weather experts said. Forecasts on Thursday didn't say exactly where the worst rain might fall and how much — because that's very difficult to predict so far ahead, meteorologists said. Where exactly the rain falls can make a big difference in river forecasting. 'I look at flash flood events like this very similarly to tornadoes,' said Alan Gerard, a retired NOAA meteorologist and current CEO of Balanced Weather. 'We can tell you the conditions are favorable … but we can't tell you exactly how strong the tornado is going to be and whether or not it's going to hit your house.' Kerr County is part of the Texas Hill Country, where the limestone hills lack deep layers of soil to absorb water. Rivers can rise shockingly fast. Deadly flood events have happened there repeatedly in the past. The Texas Division of Emergency Management had activated rescue teams and bumped up its readiness level Thursday to bring more help on board. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said the regional director for TDEM personally called local officials to discuss the brewing storm. A state rescue task force, military vehicles and aircraft were stationed in the region, mostly in San Antonio, TDEM Chief Nim Kidd said during a press conference Friday night. But whether Kerr County officials got a call or took any particular action after the July 3 flood watch went out is unclear. At a news conference on Friday as the death toll rose, Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly said, 'We didn't know this flood was coming.' Neither Kelly, the county sheriff nor the emergency management coordinator responded to requests for interviews. Part of the problem could be alert fatigue, especially in an area known for frequent flooding. People often receive multiple flood watches that don't result in actual flooding, said Avantika Gori, an assistant professor of civil & environmental engineering at Rice University and flood risk expert. This can lead to complacency, with people thinking, 'It's just another one of those things,' she said. They may also not understand the difference between a watch and warning, Gori said. Kerrville Mayor Joe Herring, 63, who grew up in the city, recalled seeing reports Thursday night of a chance of rain around the time of the July 4 kids' bike parade the next day. A friend warned him heavy rain was possible across a large area, but he didn't feel worried. 'I went outside and looked at the clouds and thought someone is going to get rain, but it's not going to be us,' he said. He said thunder woke him around midnight, and he was glad to see some rain falling. The Hill Country was in a significant drought. More specific warnings, which indicate flooding is occurring or imminent, came later in the night as the forecast developed and data poured in. Extra people were on duty at the weather service office in New Braunfels, said Erica Cei, a weather service spokesperson. At 1:14 a.m., the National Weather Service pushed out its first flash flood warning for central Kerr County, saying that data indicated life-threatening flash flooding was occurring or would begin soon. That message automatically triggered alerts to radios and cell phones, Cei said. At that point, the river had barely started to rise. The river was still within its banks in most places, and the incongruity between the warning and what people saw on the ground could potentially have caused people not to take action, Erik Nielsen, an instructional assistant professor at Texas A&M University, said in an email. It's just one of many challenges of issuing effective warnings that are hard to overcome, he said. People like Valerie Peters, who was staying at a Kerrville RV campsite called Jellystone Park, woke to the rainfall at some point and said she didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. She said she looked at the emergency notifications, shut the sound off and she went back to bed. She had been looking forward to a weekend of painting, karaoke and cornhole tournaments with her family. Luckily, her campsite avoided serious damage. 'We could have died,' Peters said. 'We had no idea how serious this rain was.' For officials in the early morning hours, there was still time to act as the rain pounded. At 4:03 a.m., two hours and 49 minutes after their initial flood warning, federal forecasters warned that the rain had created a flash flood emergency for south-central Kerr County. Weather forecasters only use that term in what the agency says are 'exceedingly rare' cases to indicate that lives are very much at risk. 'This is a PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION. SEEK HIGHER GROUND NOW!' the warning said. The Guadalupe River was rising precipitously. In the nearly three hours since the first warning went out, it had risen 14.3 feet, according to the river level gauge near Hunt, upriver from Kerrville. It would rise another 15.5 feet, according to the data, before the gauge broke. At 4:35 a.m., three hours and 21 minutes after the first warning, the weather service office started to get reports from the Kerr County sheriff's office of low-level flooding, Cei said. The river was still rising. Forecasters pushed out a second flash flood emergency alert at 5:34 a.m., now for east central Kerr County, saying that 'a large and deadly flood wave' was headed down the Guadalupe River. Again, they urged people to get to higher ground immediately. They described the threat of damage as catastrophic. That was about the time the Kerr County Sheriff's Office took to Facebook to warn 'DANGEROUS FLOODING NOW.' On its Facebook page, Kerr County also posted a warning around then that the river was flooding. Kerrville's city manager — who told reporters that he'd been jogging near the river at 3:30 a.m. and saw no signs of flooding — woke the mayor with a phone call around 5:30 a.m. and told him the downtown park where a lot of the July 4th events were planned was under water. Herring said he threw on some clothes and went downtown. He got an alert on his phone from the CodeRED system the county uses at 6 a.m., he said, indicating a flash flood alert or 'something to that effect.' Residents can enroll in the system to get alerts. He said it was the only weather alert he got that morning. Communicating these developing threats as forecasts become more clear is what meteorologists call a 'last mile' problem — and it's long plagued the field. Even as weather service forecasters are issuing warnings, they might have no idea who's listening or monitoring the situation from the other side. 'The big question marks are, who was the National Weather Service able to reach in person and who was able to monitor the automated warnings that went out through cell phones, through email blasts and so forth at 1, 2, 3, 4 a.m.,' said Henson, the meteorologist with Yale Climate Connections. 'And that just comes down to county, local, and even to individual entities like campgrounds.' At National Weather Service weather forecast offices, it falls to the warning coordination meteorologist — in this case Paul Yura, who retired from a decades-long career in April, a few years earlier than he planned — to build relationships with local community members to prepare for events such as this. The White House on Monday defended the forecasting agency in the face of questions about whether nationwide staffing cuts had impacted their work. Two of Mayor Herring's close friends — Jane Ragsdale, director of the Heart O' The Hills camp and Dick Eastland, one of the owners of Camp Mystic — died in the flooding and their deaths have hit him hard. He felt sure both would have checked the weather. 'I wish to God there had been some way to warn them,' he said. Disclosure: Facebook, Rice University and Texas A&M University have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here. This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at
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Greg Abbott Was Asked Who's To Blame For The Texas Floods, And His Response Is Going Viral For Being "Tone-Deaf" And "Insane"
Central Texas is continuing to deal with the devastating fallout of massive flash floods as deaths continue to mount, and at least 173 people remain missing. Related: Since Friday, the media and citizens across the country have demanded answers as to why there was not a county-wide siren system in place to warn Texans of the flood, which could have potentially saved lives. According to AP News, Kerr County's top elected official said that the county had considered implementing a tornado-like siren for floods years ago. Still, the idea never came to fruition due to costs. "We've looked into it public reeled at the cost," Judge Rob Kelly said. On Fox News, Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick also admitted that flood warnings were issued via text for those who "signed up," forcing some residents to warn each other. "There were alert warnings that went out, we believe, by the locals. But if you were a resident and you signed up for it, you got it. But, if you happen to be a stranger who just came in for the Fourth of July weekend, you might not have had that [warning]." Well, Texas Governor Greg Abbott was confronted directly by a reporter who asked him who was to blame for the tragedy, and his comments are going viral: Abbott: You ask, I'm going to use your words: Who's to blame? Know this. That's the word choice of losers. Let me explain one thing about Texas. Every square inch of our state cares about football. Every football team makes mistakes. The losing teams are the ones who try to… — Acyn (@Acyn) July 8, 2025 CNN / Twitter: @Acyn Related: "You ask, I'm going to use your words: 'Who's to blame?' Know this. That's the word choice of losers." "Let me explain one thing about Texas. And that is, Texas, every square inch of our state cares about football. You can be in Hunt, Texas, Huntsville, Texas, Houston, Texas, any size community, they care about football. High school Friday night lights, college football, or pro." Related: "Every football team makes mistakes. The losing teams are the ones who try to point out who is to blame. The championship teams are the ones who say, 'Don't worry about it, man, we got this.' We're going to make sure that we go score again and we're gonna win this game. The way winners talk is not to point fingers. They talk about solutions." In response to the clip, people have been ripping into Abbott for his "callousness" during a tragedy. "You don't get to play the 'everyone makes mistakes' card when this was avoidable," another person wrote. "Nothing says strong leadership like using a football analogy to downplay the death of dozens of children," this person wrote. Related: This person pointed out the Texas government's unwillingness to use budget money on a siren alert system. "Calling people losers for wanting answers and making a fucking football analogy when 100+ people are dead and 160+ are missing is insane. Fuck him and his wannabe tr*mp ass," this person wrote. This user called Abbott's analogy "tone-deaf." What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments below. Also in In the News: Also in In the News: Also in In the News:
